Student Suspended Over Show-And-Tell Souvenir(Iowa)

kcci.com ^ | 27 October, 2009 | na

[marktwain]

DES MOINES, Iowa -- A Des Moines girl was suspended after school officials said she violated their weapons policy.

Jazmine Martin, 12, brought an empty shotgun shell to school on Monday, a souvenir from a summer vacation to South Dakota. The shell was empty and had the word "blank" written on the front.

"We went to South Dakota and went to the Circle B Ranch," said Chenoa Martin, Jazmine's mother. "There's a show of the old West -- a stampede. Had a gun shoot-out and stuff like that. When they fire their rifles, they do it into the crowd. It posed no risk."

"We went around the building to look for them and they said they don't care if we have them so we picked up all of them," said Jazmine Martin.

"They picked up the shells as souvenirs of that event -- it was wonderful," said Chenoa Martin.

"I wanted to show it to my science teacher because he's into stuff like this," said Jazmine Martin.

Jazmine Martin said she never got the chance to show her teacher. During fourth period last week, she got pulled out of class and was questioned about her summer souvenir.

"They called me to the office and when I was walking through the hallway I am like 'what did I do?'" said Jazmine Martin.

"This young lady brought a bag of shell casings and shared them with other kids," said Randy Gordon, Brody Middle School principal.

Gordon said that even though they were empty, the shell casings are considered ammo, which violates the school's weapon policy.

[marktwain]

This is happening in Iowa. The school system has gone insane.

[my small voice]

What a joke!!! IOWA, your school system is a joke!! How embarrassing!!!!!!!!

[BenLurkin]

I'm having a hard time believing this: “When they fire their rifles, they do it into the crowd.”

[Neoliberalnot]

Gotta remember, Iowa went with the Hussein.

[Logical me]

Communists liberal insane nuts at work.

[xjcsa]

I love that this story is now in the Iowa sidebar three times.

[albie]

If it was loaded the 12 year old would behind bars right now.

[xjcsa]

What a joke!!! IOWA, your school system is a joke!! How embarrassing!!!!!!!!

This wasn't a state-level decision and has nothing to do with the Iowa "school system." This was a decision made by the Des Moines school district, which is indeed making a joke of itself here.

[john in springfield]

This is just asinine.

[usslsm51]

We have to remember these are now Government Schools.

[DallasDeb]

Common sense left some people when political correctness took over.

[xjcsa]

Gordon said that even though they were empty, the shell casings are considered ammo, which violates the school's weapon policy.

And Randy Gordon is "considered" an educator. Neither statement is true: a shell casing is not "ammo," and Randy Gordon is a useless pantywaist douchebag, not an educator.

[classified]

Yep! I can’t believe that every school in Iowa has A$$holes in charge of each one. The communist have infiltrated the schools but surely there are some common sense middle of the ground people left in charge of some of the schools? OMG!

[A. Morgan]

What’s next, examining the bumps on someone’s head and declaring “dangerous thoughts”?

[Last Dakotan]

You’re not a man in North Dakota unless there is a half-dozen of these rolling around the cab or box of your pickup.

[Da Coyote]

We must come up with a word which will adequately express the consummate stupidity of our “education” establishment.

The best thing we could do to our schools is to ban anyone possessing only a degree in “education”.

Why not get real scholars there?

[spodefly]

I no longer wish to share this world with “educators” that can’t tell the difference between an inert piece of plastic that was once a BLANK shell used in a cowboy show, and a weapon.

I do not believe a sane nation would expose its children to such imbeciles in any way, much less prop them up as “educators” in a failed education system, and leave our children to their idiotic indoctrinations and neuroses.

It is time to take out the trash.

[wardaddy]

Public schools and most privates are all like this.

even in conservative areas like where i live they do this and they teach history with race as the pivotal issue...it gets old.

my 4th grader gives em hell though...the teacher gets challenged

[Dante3]

Not only the school system in Iowa has cone insane. I read - assuming it was accurately reported - about the Polk County Sheriff William McCarthy crying over illegal aliens. The comments attributed to him were beyond dumb - a sheriff supporting breaking the law

[swain_forkbeard]

That, too, has already occurred.

[dragnet2]

Those in government and those running these government schools have become hysterical controlling idiots.

[LearnsFromMistakes]

first thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2372382/posts

second thread(mine...I missed it): http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2372756/posts

it is incredible...sad to see from my state capital...

[A. Morgan]

And I thought things were crazy years ago when in neighboring community, a middle school principle shot a 5th grade teacher while she played a piano in front of the class killing her.

[RatsDawg]

In elementary school, a friend of mine got suspended for having a soft plastic toy army knife that was broken, and had been wrapped in duct tape.

He wore some army camo cargo pants to school, and unbeknown to him, the “knife” was in one of his leg pockets, he was playing army in the back yard the night before, and forgot about it. He found it during class and took it out, the teacher saw it, and made him go to the office.

His dad tried to fight to get him to stay in school. He told the principal that he could do more harm with a pencil than a knife made out of tape!

I grew up in Obama’s home state of Illinois

[RobinOfKingston]

This chit is a result of incompetent school boards.

Why have we conservatives not begun the drumbeat to reclaim school boards? All it takes is getting sensible people elected over a couple election cycles.

[Dante3]

This is insane. What is wrong with these people? Is it part of taking control of our lives, a step at a time, when even the craziest orders have to be followed? It’s like being in the Twilight Zone.

[fujimoh]

Ditto!

[XenaLee]

"It is time to take out the trash."

Actually...no. It's past that time...way past. And yet, still.... I see people just sitting around....observing the dismantling of America.

It's surreal.

[Landru]

"This is happening in Iowa. The school system has gone insane."

School system, mark?
How 'bout state?
Very same state that elected THIS clown, coincidentally enough.

It's just gotta be in the water.
The only rational explanation for such displays of mass induced insanity.

[XenaLee]

"All it takes is getting sensible people elected over a couple election cycles."

I'm guessing that most conservatives have already taken their kids out of the public cesspool and made the financial sacrifice to send them to private schools. Those few conservatives that have not, are vastly outnumbered by leftists, liberals, DemocRats and those that just don't give a damn. When you're up against a leftist majority, getting elected to a school board is not as easy as you seem to think. The public school system (ie government indoctrination centers) is a lost cause (IMO).

[ViLaLuz]

Good thing the kid didn’t have an aspirin on him. Not only would he be a dangerous nut clinging to his ammo but a drug dealer, too.

[nathanbedford]

Poster after succeeding poster echoes your accurate observation that this draconian reaction is "insane." The question is, how did we come to this?

This mindless application of a no exceptions policy is the predictable result of a series of factors. The mentality that is created by the left against guns is of course the primary culprit. The willful propagandizing of the regrettable shooting incidents in schools has also contributed greatly to the policy. Insurance companies who are reacting to verdics obtained by tort lawyers simply proscribe guns or anything that resemble guns or knives or any other weapon as the most expedient way to reduce claims. They're doing the same thing with respect to dodgeball and other athletic endeavors on the playing field and during recess. In a similar mindset, school administration officials and teachers know that the safe course for them is always to overreact. Finally, the predominant left-wing bias of teachers and school administrators leads them to a self righteous belief that they are acting in the right against inanimate objects which are truly evil.

It is ironic that a school is supposed to be a place of academic inquiry where both sides of issues are to be explored and diversity of opinion are to be protected yet it is these very institutions that have become so dogmatic on issues like this. We all know it carries over into free speech.

There is a momentum in our society that pushes all bureaucrats toward enacting rules without exceptions to protect themselves and their own careers. The media and academia are absolutely committed and immutable in their doctrine that there can be no positive association with weapons. Any voice of a hunter or someone who believes in self defense is simply disregarded as unstable. The very idea of a teacher with a collectivist mentality supporting the use by an individual of weapons for self protection as an alternative to submitting oneself meekly to the protection of the state, is anathema.

[RobinOfKingston]

XenaLee —

Everything you write can also be applied on the national political level, and yet, here we are “mad as hell” and planning on taking it back.

I think it would be a lot easier to get elected in a local school board election than to one of the positions traditionally occupied by a Repub-ocrat.

[newgeezer]

Got Search?

;^)

[IDFbunny]

Why don’t they collect these zero-tolerance zealots and employ them in the inner city schools?

[An Old Man]

Gordon said: "that even though they were empty, the shell casings are considered ammo"...

Hummmm.... I hereby declare all the Maple Leaves lying in my yard to be $10 Bills.

Even though I can call leaves dollar bills all day long, they are still only leaves. The same is true of shot shell casings. You can call them ammo or whatever else you want to. They are still harmless cardboard or plastic tubes.

[Dayman]

This isn’t surprising. Since moving to IA a year and a half ago it has become very apparent that Iowa is the San Francisco of the mid-west.

[Political Junkie Too]

I wonder, if a child brought in an empty prescription pill bottle to hold coins in, would the school still say the student had drugs?

-PJ

[Shooter 2.5]

Poor girl. This must be the third time she’s been suspended. You would think she would have learned by now.

[guitarplayer1953]

I remember when I was in grade school some kid brought a Samaria sword to bring and brag as we use to call it. His dad got it in WW2. No one batted an eye back then.

[DTogo]

Where Randy Gordon, Brody Middle School principal belongs when the Second American Revolution/Civil War begins: